Christmas Cards? | 3-Play Face Masks | 2960 Series Catalyst Switch | Hiring for Talent | News to Start Your Day
Happy Monday!
(October 26th is Nation Pumpkin Day! So whether you are carving it or drinking a spiced version, enjoy!)
Happy Monday, all!
I hope you all had a good weekend. I spent most of the weekend not feeling well, so I was glad to be mostly better and able to attend church with the family yesterday. The autumn colors here in our little corner of Georgia are beautiful right now. Some of the leaves are beginning to fall, so we’re enjoying them while we can. I usually schedule family pictures for us around this time, but this year I just wasn’t feeling it for some reason. Just one more thing on the to-do list, I guess. I’m embracing simplicity where I can.
One of the reasons I like fall family pictures is because it helps me prepare for sending Christmas cards to our friends and family. I enjoy sending and receiving cards. We usually hang all of the cards we receive up in one area of our home. It is a nice little moment to enjoy, seeing the smiling faces of people we care about all in one place. The last few years it seems like I have received less and less cards from others. I wonder how families will choose to handle that task this year. Will job changes or losses keep them from sending? Are more people craving some sort of connection so they’ll be sure to send cards or letters? I’m still debating embracing a year of simplicity (no cards) vs keeping tradition (sending them).
How does your family handle sending cards? Are you doing anything different this year?
Christin
Today’s Product Updates from Rebecca:
Monday… we meet again! Who else is ready to start the week strong!? No better way to do that than by snagging some awesome PPE at phenomenal prices!
One of our absolute best deals is on our 3-Ply Protective Face Mask. This is a box of 50 classic 3-Ply Protective Face Masks! Stay protected while maintaining comfort with these masks! We also have 3-Ply Protective Face Masks for Kids available! Adorable designs + great everyday protection!
If you are looking for optimal protection, check out our Medical Grade N95 Protective Face Mask. This Medical Grade Appendix A Mask provides top of the line protection! These comfortable masks feature adjustable headband style straps and have a shelf life of 11 months!!
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Main Safety Supplies Landing Page: https://www.cablesandkits.com/c/safety-supplies
Today’s product spotlight goes to the Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series 48 Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch, the WS-C2960G-48TC-L. This fully refurbished (48) 10/100/1000 switch includes (4) dual purpose (10/100/1000 or SFP) ports PLUS (4) SFP ports. This 1RU switch features LAN Base software, 32MB of Flash Memory, 64MB DRAM, and it is stackable!
As always, our products ship same day until 8PM and come with our Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty! It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not! Shop this switch today! And be sure to check out our awesome reviewshttps://www.cablesandkits.com/mc/switches/2960-gigabit/fam-106/fp-5611/#reviews!
Too Many Corners on the Box – by Gary our Chief Administrative Officer
Corners on a box define its outer limits and provide stability. However, if we continue adding “corners”, we eventually end up with a shape that approximates a soccer ball, which is both smaller than the original box and highly unstable. In the same manner, over constraining any problem-solving effort shrinks the potential solution set and yields unstable solutions prone to bouncing around from even the slightest external pressure.
I don’t have any empirical evidence to define a percentage effect, but my business experience informs me that once a manager has selected their team they have pretty well determined their fate. There is no other variable that comes remotely close to impacting performance as much as hiring the right team. Yet, there are few other management activities where the typical manager is less equipped to succeed.
The irregular nature of hiring means most managers practice this skill with insufficient frequency to remain sharp. Even managers (including me) who know some of the practices that will improve the odds of making an excellent hire are at times caught unprepared. Since we don’t have an existing funnel of candidates when an opening occurs without warning, we find ourselves in a reactive mode and compelled to publicly post a job description.
Since the Information Age vastly broadened the field of prospective candidates who learn of any job opening, any public job posting leads to a deluge of resume submittals. One common mechanized method for filtering this vast amount of input uses keyword search technology to winnow the stack of resumes to a more manageable size. Therefore, in order to feed the keyword search app, hiring managers develop a long shopping list of required skills and experiences. This check-the-box approach almost guarantees the hiring manager will receive a stack of resumes that tell him/her where a candidate has been (i.e. experiences) but will shed no light on the talents (core capabilities) that produced the results on that resume.
Candidates know the keyword game, too, and fill their resumes with buzz words. When you add our natural human tendency to assign failures to external causes and take excessive or even unwarranted credit for successes, you end up with experience statements on a resume that can mask a candidate’s contribution. An anecdotal example in the Atlanta market surrounds numerous claims by people supposedly involved in developing the Fridge Pack introduced by Coca-Cola around 2001. It’s important to understand whether someone got wet, because they made it rain or were merely standing outside when it started raining.
If that’s not complicated enough, our dynamic marketplace guarantees that the challenges of today will change tomorrow. Consequently, the requirements for the job you fill today will change tomorrow. So when we hire on historical experiences alone we risk hiring built-in obsolescence. So, what’s a hiring manager to do?
A hiring manager must get beyond the numbers (results) to understand how the candidate achieved those results. A hiring manager must arm themselves to pierce the information fog by understanding the talents necessary to succeed in their market, firm and job and then make purposeful steps to discover candidates with those talents (sometimes called traits). Why concentrate on talents? The timeless nature of talents makes them applicable in changing circumstances. The portability of talents allows people to leverage them in any situation. Candidates who possess the desired attributes will bring them to the job just by walking in the door. Talents cannot be acquired via training. We must hire them.
A shoutout to former AT&T colleague, Mike Fuller, for this corners on the box analogy.
News to Start Your Day With:
- Right at 43,446,500 cases worldwide, with 31,958,100 people who have recovered, with 1,160,542 deaths AND 8,889,600 cases in the US with over 5,772,700 people have recovered, with 230,300 deaths.
- Federal appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett is expected to be confirmed by the Senate today as a justice on the Supreme Court, bringing an end to the Democrats’ fight to prevent the vote until after the Nov. 3 election.
- In addition to two days each in excess of 83,700 new coronavirus cases in the U.S., infections grew by 5% or more over the past week in 37 states as of Friday, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data. A weekly average evens out fluctuations in daily reporting. Some states, including California and Alabama, have been working through a backlog of tests that were added to Friday’s record count.
- U.K. pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said Monday its potential Covid-19 vaccine produced a similar immune response in older and younger adults. Adverse responses to the vaccine among the elderly, the age group at highest risk from the coronavirus, were also found to be lower, said AstraZeneca, which is developing the vaccine in collaboration with Oxford University.
- At least three large U.S. media companies expect the number of U.S. households that subscribe to a traditional pay-TV bundle to fall to about 50 million in the next five years. At 50 million subscribers, it’s unclear the current pay-TV model can survive without falling further.
- China’s government said Monday it will impose sanctions on U.S. military contractors including Boeing Co.’s defense unit and Lockheed Martin Corp. for supplying weapons to rival Taiwan, stepping up a feud with Washington over security and Beijing’s strategic ambitions.
- Vice President Mike Pence’s office announced Sunday that three more staffers have now tested positive for coronavirus. That follows news Saturday that Pence chief of staff Marc Short tested positive as well as and outside adviser Marty Obst, bringing the number of people close to Pence who have tested positive to five. Pence and second lady Karen Pence tested negative for the virus this weekend.